


Overheard at the Hanged Man

by hes5thlazarus



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: The Last Court
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:40:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 13,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26749633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes5thlazarus/pseuds/hes5thlazarus
Summary: 1: Flemeth considers the Breach.2: Feynriel struggles with his lessons.3: Lady Emmald takes Sera to Minrathous.4: Athenril looks for Jowan.5: King Alistair listens to the wardens.6: Solas' most loyal lieutenant keeps living.7: Solas is hurt. Cole translates.8: Merrill is haunted by dead whispers.9: Dog fights the Arishok.10: Zevran and Isabela play Wicked Grace.11: Fen'Harel finds the Blight.12: Skinner hears the call of the Applewood.13: Lanaya seeks out Clan Lavellan.14: Dagna becomes one with the Dwarf.15: Adaia Tabris meets Tug.16: Hissrad writes to the Ben-Hassrath.17: Widris hungers.18: Samson tips off Merrill about Kelder.19: Mythal plots.20: Ghilan'nain crafts the halla.21: Haven breaks Leliana.22: Zevran has options.23: A little horror.24: Alistair and Solas talk.25: A wedding song.26: Varric reacts to the fake-Archdemon.27: Harding and Ritts are stoned as fuck.28: Solas and Blackwall rescue Lavellan.29: Mahariel won't outlive the Blight.30: Hawke takes on the Carta.31: Lavellan writes.
Relationships: Adaia Tabris & Tug, Alistair & Lavellan (Dragon Age), Anders & Merrill (Dragon Age), Andruil/Fen'Harel/Ghilan'nain (Dragon Age), Andruil/Ghilan'nain, Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan & Lanaya, Female Lavellan/Solas, Fen'Harel/Ghilan'nain (Dragon Age), Fenris & Merrill (Dragon Age), Hawke & Varric Tethras, Iron Bull & Ben-Hassrath, Jowan/Surana (Dragon Age), Lace Harding & Ritts, Merrill & Samson, Sera & Lady Emmald, Skinner & Dalish, Solas & Alistair, Solas & Feynriel, Zevran Arainai & Isabela, Zevran Arainai/Female Mahariel, Zevran Arainai/Female Warden, Zevran Arainai/Isabela
Comments: 18
Kudos: 40
Collections: Beyond the Veil's Artober Event, Genuary 2021





	1. Breach

Flemeth thought, well. He was always a sloppy planner. Blood dripped from her nose as the roar between Fade and waking world screeched in the fragility of her human brain. She wiped it away absentmindedly. These shadows had grown so fragile, but Morrigan would be ready soon. She chuckled to herself: always the pride and incompetence of her children would flex the order she sought to impose. Solas had shown such promise, too. Of course, he was born of her own Pride, so how could he not? Still, really, what was he thinking?   
  
Flemeth stretched and shifted into Mythal’s more natural form, arms stretching into wings, and batted closer to the cracks. A Titan’s heart, powered by mad lyrium: sloppy, sloppy, he knew better than to use a tool she poisoned herself. That was  _ her _ foci. She licked her lips. They had ripped the heart out together, but that was her blood used to seal it, that was her blood used to bring down Elvhenan. Flemeth threw her head back and laughed, a rumble in her dragon-throat. She thought she had taught him better: always own your mistakes. Well, well. Finally, time would move faster. Finally, her hand was played. Wrapping the currents of the Veil around her, Flemeth flew into the Breach.


	2. Dreamer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feynriel struggles with the Fade.

Feynriel was starting to think he wasn’t very good at this. The fog lifted from the courtyard and the Hahren stared at him, exasperated.   
  
“Try again,” he said. “Focus your mind. Hear past the noise of the waking world and distill it to its basic rhythm. Now.” Hahren opened his hands and immediately the fog swallowed him up, and Feynriel panicked. It rushed him, crabbing at his face, into his throat, and he screamed as the breath choked from his throat.   
  
Then they were in the rotunda, the walls all brilliantly painted, and Hahren was keeping his face neutral as he helped him up. Feynriel looked around widely--was that a dragon? Could Hahren see the future? Hahren’s lips thinned and the scene shifted again. Suddenly they were in the chapel, in the cool quiet.   
  
“Is this more comfortable for you?” Hahren asked. Feynriel flushed, and began to stammer, and the chapel grew hot, stifling, and the Hahren sat down next to him, now they were in Kirkwall, sitting on the docks. “You must learn to adjust to the contradictions within your own mind. You are holistic, and these impulses are not at odds. They only are. They are you. There is no shame in being a person, or,” he looked amused, “a teenaged boy.” The hahren pulled himself up and smiled. He offered him his hand. Feynriel took a deep breath, and wondered why he was not breathing the usual Kirkwall smells, the oily stink of fish, the stalls of fried food, the gutter trash. Suddenly the scent flooded the scene, he could hear seagulls screaming, and at the edge of the dock a Desire demon paused and then swaggered by as he recognized them for what they were. Feynriel smiled and took the Hahren’s hand, and they tried again.


	3. Imperium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3, Imperium: Lady Emmald takes Sera on a business trip with her to Minrathous. Nothing feels right.

“Stay close,” Lady Emmald ordered. Sera scowled. Lady Emmald had dressed her up in her house’s color and made sure she had three copies of her adoption papers, so no one would try to steal her. She’d done her hair up in pigtails with gold woven in the plaits, to make it clear she had money, and put her in a dress the color of what the Orlesians called Dalish green. She was a pet and a pretty one and she hated her and the dress and the hair and the carriage and all the smelly Tevinter smells, and Dalish green was an ugly color, so there. So there.   
  
When they finally got to the guild house Sera was sick and grouchy from all the jolting and she almost threw a fit, just to see how Lady Emmald would react, if her little elf wouldn’t play nice in front of the guests, but then Lady Emmald stepped out first and gasped, and curiosity won out because Sera had to know what could make her sound that happily surprised, so she stuck her head out the carriage door and gasped too, because  _ woof _ . Minrathous had a lot more colors than Denerim.   
  
Even though it was night, every ten feet a thin, elegant iron tree branched from the sidewalk and sprouted gentle flowers of light. The sidewalk itself had an amber shine, and the streets were clean and paved with tight flagstones, and they didn’t even wagon ruts. The air smelled like Lady Emmald’s favorite tea, spiced but sweet and fragrant with good, with the warmth of a cup in the hand and enough to eat, and though Sera knew it was hot a breeze moved, just constant enough to not be right. It wasn’t right. Something rose in her, beyond panic, to make the breeze go away, it was beyond her, it wasn’t right it wasn’t right it wasn’t right--   
  
“Sera,” Lady Emmald instructed. “Out.”   
  
Snapping back to the carriage and the sidewalk and the good smell, Sera pouted. She didn’t want to, but she had to, so she did. For now. Just for today. But one day, no. No more. For once, something right.


	4. Tranquil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Athenril, at the Inquisition's behest, looks for Jowan. Alistair is accidentally the last to know and not pleased about it.

Seeker Pentaghast,   
We have located the man of whom you spoke and will be bringing her to Skyhold forthwith. Expect us a month after you receive this.   
\--Athenril   
  
Varric,   
When the hell did you start working for the Chantry? I can’t believe I’m working for the Chantry. The things we do because Hawke asks us, and elf-dwarf solidarity and all that shit. I feel like if I told Keeper Lavellan no our mother would reassemble herself out of her ashes from the Vhenadahl and beat me with a tree branch. Anyway. Is it true Imladris fucked the Dread Wolf? She was always so responsible growing up. Made me eat my vegetables. You sure it wasn’t her brother who did it? Or her sister? Ashara’s pretty crazy too.   
\--Athenril   
  
Varric,   
You cannot tell people that the Inquisitor’s lover is the Dread Wolf. Even if it is true. If you spark a holy war we’re making you the new prophet. But thank you for finding him. His fate has weighed heavily on my love these many years.   
\--Leliana   
  
First Lavellan,   
Please tell Keeper Deshanna that I have fulfilled my obligations to the clan and she cannot keep trying to run my life. I get that she lives vicariously through me, she thinks this shit is fun. And it is fun. And it’s more fun without her trying to nag me to come back to Wycombe every month. Kirkwall’s a shithole, but it’s home.   
(written, but then heavily scored through:  _ is it true you’re fucking the Dread Wolf? _ )   
\--Athenril   
  
Athenril,   
I’ll tell her, but that doesn’t mean she’ll listen. And you should come over for dinner more often.   
Dirthamen ghilana sa, lethallin. I have work for you, if you’re willing to grow a conscience. You might even make some money.   
Also--don’t ask a question unless you want it answered. I am. And all the songs are true.   
\--Imladris Ashallin Lavellan, Inquisitor First-Thaw   
  
Leliana,   
I can’t believe you’d tell Morrigan before you’d tell me.  _ Morrigan _ . I had to find out from  _ Morrigan _ . We can’t be friends anymore. Now, since I am king of Ferelden and all that, I’m supposed to demand that you hand that traitor over to suffer a public hanging in Denerim, humiliation and terror rah rah rah. But he really wasn’t that bad of a guy, as maleficarum go, and I think Surana would kill me if I did, and then Cousland would feel obligated to kill her, and then everyone would have to pick sides, and then Anora would seize power and we’d have a whole civil war on our hands! On top of the hole in the sky and the darkspawn magister running around with that Blighted dragon of his. So really I’m making a  _ political _ decision. Take that, Teagan. And you too, Anora. I know you’re all reading this.   
Do you want to let Surana know or should I? And should we wait until we know if the procedure (?) is a success?   
Tell my mother I’m doing as well as I can be, considering the circumstances, and that I love her, and that Tabris and Adaia are doing well too. She has four teeth last I checked! They really do grow that fast. I wrote her a letter too, but hearing it from you will make her smile.   
As always, your friend,   
Alistair Theirin   
  
Cassandra--   
Please meet myself, Solas, and Dorian at the ritual tower past midnight this Satinalia. Fast for the day. If all goes well, we’ll have reason enough to celebrate afterward.   
\--Imladris   
  
Anders,   
It worked. The Inquisitor’s teaching all the rebel mages. She’s taking me to the Approach to meet that Orlesian dragon expert; we should make it to Griffon Wing Keep in a month. I’ll find a way to teach you. Be careful. Dirthamen ghilana sa.   
\--Minaeve   
  
Surana,   
Tell me where you want me to sail and I shall be there.   
\--Jowan


	5. Warden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The newly-crowned King of Ferelden listens to a Free Marcher warden lecture the new recruits on what they must sacrifice.

“There is no point in writing your family that you survived the Blight, because you are a warden now,” Ashara says. “The wardens are your family.”   
  
Alistair says, “Hang on, I’m not sure that’s quite fair…” He trails off, because he does not have a  _ locus standi _ in the matter. He is no longer a Warden, though the Calling will claim him soon enough, and he has found his mother, and friends who are better siblings than Cailan ever was. He has Tabris, though Anora made it clear they need to keep apart, for appearance’s sake, because they cannot have a half-elvhen bastard with an elvhen queen, Denerim-born or not. And somewhere, out in the Wilds, is Morrigan, with his son, and someday he will meet him. She promised him that, and that she would keep him safe, and in that he trusts her.   
  
The other wardens do not have that. Ashara is from Clan Lavellan, Mahariel tells him: she recognizes her vallaslin. She is the last elf alive marked by Adahlfenor of Clan Lavellan, she says. This is significant because Antoine of Jader, a close ally of Empress Celene, married into the Duchy of Wycombe in the Free Marches, and had his chevaliers clear out all the Dalish over the age of sixteen. Casual brutality: Alistair cannot pretend this does not happen in Ferelden, but as king he can ensure it does not happen again. He listens to Ashara lecture the new Ferelden recruits on how they must understand that their lives are tied to the Blight, not the everyday that they left behind, and feels sick. His brother would have crowned Celene queen. How could he? Celene, who had her fingers in every pie, encroaching on their borders along the Frostbacks, in the Free Marches, playing games with Orzammar and the Chantry and Navarra, Celene, who funded the only Wardens who remained: besides him, and the scrappy-looking bunch before him, and some volunteers from the Marches.   
  
“It’s hard at first,” Ashara is saying, “but it gets easier. Because it is so hard to explain. And we are the only ones who understand how your body will change. How bad the dreams get. How time narrows. That is universal to every single warden, from the ones before us, to the ones, Mythal’enast’, who will succeed us. And this sacrifice is worth it, because it means our families will not pay the price. Darkspawn don’t kill nicely, you know.”   
  
They know, because they have survived their first Blight, these ramshackle troops from the Dalish clans, the Circle, the templars, the Legion, Redcliffe even. Ferelden wardens, willing to die. Wardens who have left off their family names. Alistair thinks about his mother: but the two of them, they have gained everything, leaving the wardens. He has a family name.


	6. Elvhen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas' most loyal lieutenant reflects on what it means to be Elvhen, after the end of the world.

“Another world is possible,” Fen’Harel said. “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” Words spoken thus, with utter certainty, shifted history. Speech became action. Arlathan rumbled and was almost saved: if only he had said “better.” But Ghilan’nain had other plans.  
  
Marella had no regrets, not even when the sky cracked and the world tore and the brethren of the air was ripped away from them, Justice and Wisdom harder to reach beyond the screech of what Fen’Harel rendered the Veil. She had told him it was madness, that was true, but still she believed. Still she followed him. She had nothing to lose but her chains, and he had taken away her vallaslin.  
  
When she was an old woman and her mate Nuvis long dead, her son asked her, “Why did you follow him? Even when he tore the world apart?” and she said it was because she was Elvhen, and the People do not bend the knee, and he had taught her to stand with Pride, shoulder-to-shoulder in battle with Justice, because he had absolute unshaking certainty in their righteousness. Before she was a slave, a temple guard, little better than a living sacrifice. Arlathan had fallen, Arlathan had been sealed away: but Ghilan’nain’s army was gone, and so was her plague.   
  
She said, “Freedom is worth more than happiness. Elvhenan is the People, not the empire, da’len. And Fen’Harel broke every chain so we could be free.” He had made change possible: and the world was theirs for the taking.  
  
She would have been furious with him if she had known he thought she bungled it.


	7. Spirit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the battle for Suledin Keep, Solas is grievously injured. Cole tells Lavellan what's on his mind.

Spirit-self sees but sorrows, solace but  
not enough, I will not submit,  
bright glittering glaring the shine  
of her eyes glinting in the witchlight  
wary weary worrying my fault my _fault_  
softer silent still speak up Solas,  
Banal nadas the Blight is inevitable  
not like this: Din elvhen emma him?   
Dirth ma, harellan: Mar solas ena mar din. But  
cold, freezing frightening ripping up from the inside,  
song ringing in my bones, I don’t want to die here,  
not like this. Dawn breaking, bloody light,   
bandages stiff but flesh knitting back together  
unscarred. If I walk after this I will not walk away.


	8. Maleficarum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merrill's blood magic arouses the dead whispers of her ancestors, lost in Kirkwall.

Merrill likes to walk outside the Gallows. She stares at the chained bodies at the harbor gates, the tormented statues flanking the monumental entrance into Kirkwall, and thinks about all the ancestors who were brought here and then scattered. Blood on the cobblestones: Merrill presses a hand to the living stone and can hear them whispering,  _ ar dirthan'as ir elgara ma'sula e'var vhenan ar dirthan'as ir elgara, ma'sula e'var vhenan ar dirthan'as ir elgara, ma'sula e'var vhenan  _ until a voice quite like Keeper Marethari snaps inside her, “Din elvhen emma him?” and she pulls away, and walks quickly back to the Lowtown alienage. She is walking on a millennium’s worth of dead elves, perhaps longer. The Sundermount references the living gods, and she can feel their deaths whispering at them, plucking at her very old blood.   
  
She is the living of the dead and to cleanse herself of dead whispers she cuts her finger and smears the blood onto the Vhenadahl, a sacrifice to encourage it to flourish. No one gets enough sun in Kirkwall, least of all the Tree of the People, but she says to it and herself, “Din elvhen emma him?” and orders it, grow. Sink your roots into the bonemeal loam and dig deep. The years pass and the Vhenadahl grows fat, roots ripping through the flagstones, and none of the People whisper maleficarum, even as she grows paler and the tree grows greener, travelling between the Sundermount and her little eluvian. Her daring grows worse: she takes the more winding path through the Darktown sewers, and Audacity tells her she can find the lost gods if she is willing, the Forgotten Ones, but she has heard enough tales of the Applewood to save her blood for the living. Still, it is difficult to ignore the whispers: a _ r dirthan'as ir elgara, ma'sula e'var vhenan _ , the flowers say in the Viscount’s Garden, the whole of Kirkwall is an elvhen burial ground.   
  
She asks Fenris once, and only once, what they say of Kirkwall, amongst the People in Tevinter. She asks him if he hears the whispers too: “Ar dirthan'as ir elgara, ma'sula e'var vhenan?” He does not start. He hears her, he understands, and he is silent.   
  
Then he says, “Do you want to die? I don’t think our ancestors were necessarily kind. Not the ones who died the way they did, stuck in Kirkwall. That is not ‘vhenan,’ lethallin.” His accent is different than hers but the words are the same. The tongue of the People is born, not raised. It is in the blood. She could open it up, if she dared. But Fenris says, “Din elvhen emma him?” and she hears his meaning ring so clearly she starts. An elf, or a dead elf?   
  
And she chooses the People.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible translations for "Din elvhen emma him?" since Elvhen is a cipher:  
> "Do you want to be a dead elf?" "Either the People or the Dead?" "Are the people dead?"


	9. Mabari

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dog fights the Arishok.

The Arishok challenges Hawke to single-combat, and they heft their daggers and look at the Arishok’s massive sword, and then back at their daggers. Isabela had made fun of them when they first got them, said they were ridiculously large and unsubtle. Now they seem puny. Hawke feels puny.  
  
“Does it really just have to be me?” they say. “I’m all for the honor of Kirkwall and not getting smashed by the will of the Qun, but I’m really not built for single combat.” They look at their companions. Dog barks excitedly. Hawke had painted a kaddis on them for the hell of it yesterday: how far away and innocent yesterday seems. Still, Dog seems ready for battle, like the proud Ferelden he is. Hawke thinks: well, I assimilated. Kirkwall coward, that’s me. Dog growls and thumps his tail. “Can I bring my dog? He’s a war-dog. I’m Ferelden. That’s what we do. Fight with war-dogs.”  
  
The Arishok raises an eyebrow. Hawke feels like they scored a point, somehow. They look at Fenris for help translating this to the Qun. Hawke mouths: help. Fenris sighs and steps forward.  
  
“As the Qun considers the blade the soul of the self, so do Ferelden warriors their mabari,” he says. Dog barks excitedly. Hawke nods sagely: yes yes, Dog is definitely an extension of my soul, they are trying to convey.  
  
The Arishok considers Dog. Dog considers the Arishok. Isabela mutters, “You gotta be kidding me,” and Fenris elbows her to shut her up. Finally, the Arishok says, “This satisfies a demand of the Qun. Hawke, alongside their mabari, will duel for the fate of Kirkwall.”  
  
At some point during the battle, Dog clamps onto the Arishok’s butt while the Qunari leader attempts to impale Hawke on his sword. The whole interlude is too ridiculous to be believable, and Varric decides not to put it in the book.  
  
“You’re the hero,” Varrics tells them, as they’re pouring over the first draft and complaining. “I have to give you the semblance of dignity. People look up to you, you know.”  
  
“Oh, that’s not a good idea,” Hawkes says, and Dog barks in agreement.


	10. Wicked Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zevran plays Wicked Grace with Isabela at the Hanged Man. Isabela realizes things have changed.

“Never bet with an Antivan,” Zevran says, tossing two more coppers into the pot. Isabela laughs.   
  
“Is that all you’ve got?” She leans forward, and enjoys how Zevran’s eyes trace down her face and to her cleavage caressingly, and then back up again. They’ll fuck after this. Maybe Hawke or Merrill join in, or even Anders in the right more. “You’re bluffing. You have to be. You used to be more reckless.”   
  
Zevran shrugs. It is an eloquent shrug, conveying amusement with himself and her and the circumstances in which they have found each other, and resignation with the churning of life.   
  
“The Blight changed things,” he says, considering his cards. “I need enough for my passage to Wycombe.”   
  
“And then?” she prods. The witchlight glitters in her earrings and Isabela knows she looks her best.   
  
He chuckles. “Why consider the problems of tomorrow? I fold.”   
  
Isabela rolls her eyes. “You would.” She tosses a silver piece in now, real money. “Match that.” He does. She considers her cards. Her mother taught her a little card-reading. Outside of Rivain, people are gullible, and think anyone can draw the future from a deck of cards. Queen of Spades, Ten of Clubs, Two of Hearts: trouble but your friends have your back, a fulfilling lay at the end of it, she hopes. She doesn’t want it to mean more, she doesn’t want to think past tomorrow morning and whether Zevran will stay for coffee before sneaking off.   
  
He does stay for breakfast the next morning, which is a pleasant surprise, and she walks him to the docks, aching. One day, one of those ships will be hers. They stop near the boarding pass and he presses a scrap of paper into her hands: a forward address. “Stay in touch,” he says.   
  
“Really,” Isabela says. She is uncomfortable.   
  
“Why not?” Zevran smiles. “I might need rescuing again, and you’re more dashing than Keeper Istimaethorial’s hunters. Write me. I’ll write back.”   
  
She laughs, because she doesn’t know what to say. “You’re right. The Blight did change you. What--” She stops when she sees the way he is looking at her, and steps forward and kisses him gently. He is a lover she will never regret. Perhaps she will write him, and perhaps he will write her back. He holds her for a moment too long when she breaks from the kiss, and she thinks: maybe she won’t. Whatever has changed about him, it’s not about her. It never is.   
  
“Safe travels,” Isabela says, as he pulls away and begins to climb up the plank to his ship. She is worried, of course. She always is. It isn’t safe for elves to travel alone, not like this, not from Kirkwall at least, but she knows the captain, and Hawke and Varric threatened him last night especially for this trip.   
  
“May the Dread Wolf never catch your scent,” Zevran throws over his shoulder, and to her surprise, she does end up seeing him again, and again, and again.


	11. Blight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fen'Harel comes home from war to find the Blight in his own home.

The campaign was going well, and all was very well, but Fen’Harel still felt a strange unease returning to the household he had established with Ghilan'nain. At first he thought it was because he was falling out of love. Two centuries spent mostly away from a wife would extinguish the initial passion, particularly when neither of them had been interested in formalizing it. But Mythal had been amused by their trysting and encouraged a more formal alliance, and he was not in the habit of disobeying a direct order. Ghilan'nain was brilliant and relentless in her pursuit of knowledge, accepted and forbidden, and beautiful besides. It was a good political match, and he loved her, and she him, or so he thought. It was certainly the most intense craving he had had at the time. What else could love be?   
  
Home from the front, Fen’Harel sipped his wine and listened to Ghilan'nain debate Geldauran on the mutability of form over spirit. Geldauran, of course, had long since abandoned a physical manifestation, finding it too clunky when he could order his world by his own will. He and Ghilan’nain thought that was ridiculous, particularly since they could easily outmatch him in a battle of will. Few could withstand Ghilan’nain, and she knew how to pluck at the spirit too.   
  
“You’re being too simplistic,” she said, waving away Geldauran’s complaint. “Even within the Deepest Fade those with the will enough,” she flashed her eyes at him, but Solas looked away and examined the gold leaf of the wineglass, this was new, “can shape power into reality. Matter is not so fixed. Our war with the Children of the Stone has shown us that. And if you had not been so foolhardy to burn all your political bridges with Mythal’s court, you could’ve learned that yourself.”   
  
Geldauran was irritated, and Fen’Harel sniffed slightly, banishing the slight unpleasant feeling he was bringing to the dinner table. “You’ve been working on a new project, I gather.” Some of her creatures were gorgeous: the halla came to mind, though he regretted the loss of life their creation predicated. He was particularly fond of her experiments in ocean-dwellers, who were only too happy to share their dreams of lost civilizations and spare him the trouble of shifting his nervous system to breathe underwater. Still, she edged too close to cruelty in her lack of regard for her volunteers. Some mistakes could have been avoidable, if she had cared more. What she had done to the dwarves Mythal had captured came to mind. Fen’Harel took another sip. This was from Andruil’s vineyard: curious. He was beginning to understand his unease.   
  
Ghilan’nain smiled thinly. “Yes. I am reconstructing how the Pillars of the Earth developed their hivemind, and how that--”   
  
“Plague?” Fen’Harel offered.   
  
“Yes. Their plague, that last line of defence can be replicated and used for our own ends. I’m certain you’ve seen the armour June’s fashioned Andruil? It feeds into the flesh and makes it stronger, but with our mastery, we can bend that corruption to our will. You saw the chaos she wrecked, when she made the lyrium-soldiers mutiny. We would not need to rely on the blood-writing anymore. _This_ would banish dissent, immediately. Perfect conformity. It is so much more...elegant.”   
  
Fen’Harel’s mouth dropped open, and Geldauron snickered. He arranged his face more sternly. “That’s absurd. That is utterly absurd. You cannot work uniformity where there is natural disharmony. You cannot violate someone’s inherent nature. You would be _twisting_ them irrevocably. How many have survived these experiments? How much of their mind do they have left? The ethical implications alone--”   
  
Ghilan’nain laughed. “You have always been so self-righteous, my heart.” There was falsity in her tone. She was better than that. She wanted him to hear that. “Come, visit the workshop the All-Mother has made for me, in the Deep Roads, and you will see what we can work.”


	12. Chargers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skinner hears the call of the Applewood of Serault.

Skinner’s heard stories of the Applewood her whole life, and Dalish has too. It’s a good place to go if you’re an elf interested in the old ways, which neither of them are, but Skinner likes that Serault lives in constant fear of what the People can do. She wishes more of Orlais was like that, but,  _ tant pis _ !   
  
The Chargers are supposed to be keeping the roads clear, since the Divine is visiting the Marquis. Skinner talks to the People who live at the edge of the village and everyone is hoping it goes badly. There are wild rumors--of rebellion, for the elves and the serfs and the apostates who hide in the Applewood, and increased Chantry influence will make it more difficult. There are areas in the Emerald Graves the People have managed to reclaim, by use of wild, bad magic. Skinner wonders if they’ll manage it here.   
  
The Bull doesn’t even bother trying to get them rooms at the inn. He doesn’t quite trust the ability of the Marquis to reimburse expenses, as he promised, and so the Chargers set up camp at the edge of a friendly elf’s farm, near the Applewood. The air is dirty from the soot of the glassworks, and Stitches casts a practiced eye over the fields and says the harvest will be bad.   
  
“Rust,” he pronounces. “Rust on the wheat. I don’t understand why the Marquis hasn’t sent to the Circle, the mages can take care of this quick.”   
  
Skinner snorts. “A Marquis be sensible? Ask for the help of mages? Help the peasantry. Pah!” She spits and shuffles closer to the fire.   
  
Dalish adds, “And Serault has a reputation for apostasy. I only know that because there was a Dalish hunting ground, of course.”   
  
Bull grunts. “Fuck. Well, we can handle whatever weird magic shit comes our way. Grim, you’ll take first watch with me. These woods don’t feel right.”   
  
Skinner settles to sleep, Krem and Rocky snoozing gently at either side. She drifts into green dreams, of the shine of the sun through the leaves of the Vhenadahl, the sweet smell of the harvest, her father baking apple tarts in honor of Sylaise, before she had to run. She sees his hands, covered in flour, checking the dough on the old wooden table that his mother had made. Before she can call his name, she awakes suddenly. The woods smell like apples. Dalish is above her, and puts a finger to her own lips. Skinner sits up and quietly they leave the tent. The boss sees them and lets them go. He does not say anything. They can all feel it: the sacred silence.   
  
There is a call in the woods and it pulls at her very deepest heart, a song calling her home, and the ground reaches up to catch each footfall, though her mind is floating gravity has never been more clear, is this what Rocky means when he talks about the Stone? The trees themselves are the People, they are waving their branches gently to greet her, boughs laden with apples, but when she reaches out to touch one Dalish says, “Don’t.” Then they are in a clearing and the halla are all around them but before them is a simple, old shrine, two wolves at rest at an empty stone frame. There are apples in a woven basket. The scent of autumn harvest grows stronger and somehow they are radiant, the apples, the stone gateway, the wolves even. She reaches out to touch her but Dalish grabs her hand.   
  
Dalish says and Skinner repeats her, “Ar dirthan'as ir elgara, ma'sula e'var vhenan.” It resounds through the forest and the halla encircling them all bow. All the People who hold to preserving the old way know it, her father would greet the other hahren in the alienage with it. : In my place of wisdom, my strength is our shared heart. I judge that I endure from our shared home. Held in the secret-place, my strength emerges from our land. It means all these things at once. Common is both too exact and imprecise. The People encompass all. Skinner interlaces her fingers with Dalish and they smile at each other: I know my strength comes from us together.   
  
Skinner leaves a notched dagger she took off a bard she outdrank three towns back and Dalish a snapped bowstring, the last of the supplies she brought from her clan. The point is to leave something with a story, to add to what the People know. When the halla suddenly dash Skinner realizes it is time to leave. The moon is rising high, and old things are waking through the course of the night.   
  
The next morning the boss pointedly doesn’t ask what they had done, but he has them pack up camp and move to the inn, just in case.


	13. Vallaslin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clan Zathrian's First seeks out the scattered children of Clan Lavellan.

Zathrian’s First comes to the Wycombe alienage shaking the morning dust off her feet, and you catch her drinking from a flask in the cool shade of the Vhenadahl. She doesn’t look like anyone you know, and her vallaslin is thicker than the lines your parents wore, that some of the elves in the cities paint on their faces for the Ceremonies. She is Dalish, like you are, though according to Duke Antoine, there are no more Dalish in Wycombe. He thinks because he killed everyone with vallaslin, you’re gone. But you have a long memory, and even though Keeper Adahlfenor didn’t have a chance to teach you how to make the ink, you know the patterns.  
  
Lanaya sees you watching and pulls gently at your aura. You realize she realizes: sister-mages. She waves you over. “Lethallin,” she says, “what’s your name?”  
  
“Deshanna Mithrallin,” you say carefully. Ashara and Imladris and Revas tell everyone they’re Lavellan first, then Ashalla or Barandiun’s children second, but they’re better off, with their parents’ human and dwarf friends looking out for them. You don’t have that same buffer. You are Lavellan’s First, of course, and as First you don’t have the privilege to be fiery. The clan needs you alive, because while you are not the only mage that has managed to survive and stay hidden from the Circle, you are the oldest and got the most training, and the others need every bit that you know. You were supposed to get your vallaslin that week: Sylaise, you wanted to be dedicated to Sylaise.  
  
She examines you closely. “Adahlfenor’s Second? We met at the Arlathvhen, didn’t we?” You were about fourteen and Keeper brought you there to confirm you as Second. You feel tears dotting at your eyes and look away. It is unthinkable that Clan Lavellan will come to the next Arlathvhen in five years. You can’t imagine what the Duke will do if you all just suddenly left--take it out on the elves left behind, probably, the People of the City who took you in and scattered you. Dalish or not, you will not leave them behind. And the Arlathvhen only lasts a month.  
  
“I recognize your vallaslin,” you say. “Clan Zathrian? You’re dedicated to June.”  
  
Lanaya smiles. “Yes. And Zathrian sent me. We have heard rumors that the Dread Wolf blessed Clan Lavellan and preserved the children. We wanted to make sure that not all were lost.”  
  
You shrug. Clan Zathrian is known for being a little literal about the old stories, you remember that from the Arlathvhen, though they’re not as bad as Clan Ralaferin. “I’m not sure it was the Dread Wolf. Just luck. Common sense. Anyone who didn’t have vallaslin managed to hide.” You spread your arms out. “The alienages took in whomever they could. House Cadash too, and the Rivaini Merchants’ Guild. We had a contract. So we do not yield.”  
  
“But you’re scattered,” Lanaya says. “And while I’m sure the hahren teach you what they can, they are not Dalish.” She pulls out a long wooden box and offers it to you. “I walked through the old Friendly Homes. Just because they are now empty does not mean they are empty, da’len. You can reclaim them. Clan Zathrian will help, Clan Sabrae and Clan Alerion too. Adahlfenor meant for you to be Lavellan’s Keeper, Deshanna Mithra’s daughter. He would want you to lead.”  
  
You open the box. A tray of inks sit, along with a halla-bone tattoo pen. You stroke it gently. You’ve painted the dedications on the People’s face for the Ceremonies, Lavellan and Wycombe alike, and you made the brush out of halla hair, to get closer to the sacred. You could make it permanent, it can’t be that much more difficult, you never got to watch Keeper do it, that was the First’s duty, but Josmael has been gone for three long, hard, catastrophic years.  
  
“I don’t know how,” you say, voice thick. “Keeper didn’t have the chance to teach me.”  
  
Lanaya shifts closer, and above you a seabreeze teases the leaves of the Vhenadahl. You tip your face to the wind and the sun beaming through the latticework of the tree and pull at the warmth to beat away despair. Lanaya says, “But I can. I can teach you. Because we are Dalish: keepers of the lost lore, walkers of the lonely path. The last of Elvhenan, and never do we submit.”


	14. Lyrium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dagna becomes one with the Dwarf.

Lyrium’s weird, everyone knows that. It does weird things to your mind, elf and dwarf and human alike, and it can steal your mind and let other people see it if you’re not careful. The Shapers are so cocky about their secrets, but to Dagna, it’s obvious. The lyrium’s like a mirror, except it can grab at you: we eat it and it eats back.  
  
Isana, they call it back in Orzammar, not home anymore but when Dagna touches it, even through the glove, she feels the Stone reverberating back. Then it’s gone and the room is too silent and she feels such grief she is shocked and clutches as her desk and says, “Okay. Lyrium’s weird. You know this. And it’s gotten weirder since the Inquisitor came from the Fade. _Why?_ ” She refocuses, and tries again.  
  
This time she pulls out the glowy Fade rock the Tevinter mage had brought her. Maybe it’s the dragonskin gloves reacting to the lyrium weirdness. She needs to know why the weirdness, why, so she takes off the gloves Brosca sent to her as a graduation gift, and tries on a less magical pair. Cow leather will do for now. She writes that down in her notes-- _variable: material of gloves. Follow-up on potential reactivity of dragonskin to lyrium, connection to Blight/Corypheus’ Blighted dragon. Bianca Davri claims lyrium alive, red lyrium Blighted._ _???_ But that is an entirely different research question, and she needs to focus. New gloves on, lyrium and Fade-sample six inches apart, now: touch.  
  
The breathing roots of the world sink below Skyhold deep into Orzammar deeper the heartless Mother cries out cries out achingly we’re here we’re here thousands of us where there should be millions scattered in the grand oceans of the underworld drawing in grief everyone of us everywhere sundered but feeling across the Waking Sea, the original sin, but here I’m drinking shitty ale and thinking about Hawke and Loghain in the Fade, just glad Hawke didn’t go off yet again, I couldn’t do that to Daisy Inquisitor, tell you what if you finish one I’ll write it up a real dwarven perspective in the shadows, the arishok at your order, Lady Montilyet.  
  
Dagna jerks back and gasps. “Wow,” she says. “That was a lot. That was everything!” And then she touches it again.


	15. Rogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adaia Tabris meets Tug.

The shem called them the Night Elves, which Adaia personally thought was a fucking stupid name. They saved the king’s life and won a couple battles and then were cast to the dustbin of history. So many shem remarked to her on their desperation: how could they be so clueless? Life under the Theirins was not easy for the elves, but Orlais kept the People barely better than slaves. The occupation was worse for them.   
  
Back in Denerim Adaia tried not to get bored. Cyrion took to parenthood more than her, and with the problems with his leg, it was easier for him to watch the baby while she looked for work. There wasn’t any, at least not for an elf, because all the soldiers were coming home and taking up the jobs that were left. She, night elf or no, did not count as a soldier. The work that was available was humiliating at best and deadly at worst. Adaia had not fought and defeated the Orlesian Occupation to be killed by a horny shem noble with a thing for elves. She kept looking.   
  
The Dalish tried to help the alienage and began bringing caravans of food to Denerim. The first time they were allowed through. The second time, the arl requisitioned their supplies, but still allowed them to enter the alienage. The third time, though, the Templars took their Second and killed the hunter who tried to free him. Adaia, hearing the news, thought: well. Perhaps this isn’t worse than Orlais, after all.   
  
Then a dwarf named Tug ambled into the alienage, ostensibly to trade food for whatever valuables the elves have left. He admired her dagger, Fang, an old family heirloom, passed all the way down from Arlathan, or so her grandfather claimed. They began to chat. She mentioned she doesn’t like how the arl’s decided to starve out the alienage, particularly after all she did for her country. Tug agreed that’s not quite fair, and he was stuck in the same situation, being casteless and all that. His only options were to join the Carta or the Legion of the Dead. Fortunately, though, he found a third option.   
  
“Ever heard of the Friends of Red Jenny?” Tug asks. “Want to hear more?”


	16. Warrior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the third page of the second letter of once-Hissrad, now Tal-Vashoth, so-called “The Iron Bull” to the Ben-Hassrath. To be filed under Inquisition, Second; Military Apparatus

_the third page of the second letter of once-Hissrad, now Tal-Vashoth, so-called “The Iron Bull” to the Ben-Hassrath. To be filed under Inquisition, Second; Military Apparatus_ _  
_ _  
_The Commander of the Inquisition is uncomfortable around mages and does not sleep at night. He camps with the men, in a tent with few personal touches but a mabari carving, a figurine of Armored Andraste (sold in the Grand Cathedral of Denerim), and a pile of unanswered letters from his sister. He is attempting to wean himself from lyrium addiction, and has retired from active combat. He has never been in a war, and it is unclear as to why the Right Hand selected him to lead the Inquisition’s military apparatus.  
  
The forces themselves are scrappy but determined. The people who have answered the Inquisition’s call are predominantly Ferelden and Dalish peasants from the Hinterlands, with the honor guard of the late Divine Justinia II leading the training. Most of the soldiers enlisted not for religious reasons but for the hope of protecting their families and achieving a measure of social stability, if the Inquisition succeeds in sealing the Breach. The ones whose religious fervour brought them to Haven are predominantly former Templars who refused the call to war. There is a complement of mages working as healers and researchers, brought by the Left Hand. The Templars are kept strictly separate from them and the Tranquil on her orders. This has resulted in some tension between the Left and Right Hands and the Commander, which can be easily exploited.  
  
The saarebas elf with the mark, however, plays the role of peacekeeper within the Inquisition, and its leadership often defers to her for guidance. She has collected an assortment of adventurers as agents, including a Chantry-sister-turned-smuggler, an Avvar warrior, and Arl Eamon’s own horsemaster. These agents have substantially added to the Inquisition’s military strength, and the saarebas welcomes anyone with curiosity and a work ethic to join the organization’s infrastructure.


	17. Mage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Widris searches for the realm beyond the Fade in the Fallow Mire.

These demons are clever. Widris wanders the Mire seeking lost whispers. They’ve taken her book, someone, anyone, Wernam or Clarriss or someone, anyone, the jealousy hunting her sheep after the wolf locked in the pen but in the scum and the muck and wyrd of Fallow Mire Widris is free at last.  
  
You can never go home again: there is no home but the clearing in the Mire, the four walls and the thatch ceiling and the strange mechanism that whispered wisps of the Fade. These demons are clever. They have what she must know, there are grand lands past the Fade, sunk in the muck long-forgotten. Dead whispers say there was a battle here, between elves, millennia ago: why? Widris needs to know.  
  
Envy has chased her since the Circle but she knows not to listen to Envy since Wernam and Clarriss barely passed their Harrowing, but she commands them, she owns the spirit and shapes it, and when they offer knowledge in exchange for blood it will not be hers that spills, oh no. The Wardens taught her that: sacrifice in exchange for peace and to silence the dead whispers, but she will channel the spirit to tell her _why_. Why did they die here? What is hidden in the trenches, fallen fallow in the mire?  
  
The dead rise up to complain of their burial when the sky is split open and Widris sees the pilgrimage of demons run from the Fade into the Waking World and she knows it is for her. The Avvar say the Lady of the Skies is bleeding but she knows it is a warning, a warning and a sig. Her experiments are moving her far. These demons are clever, but she is more. Deathroot and elfroot and deep mushroom and felandaris will spike the Veil, but not in such a grand manner: _who_. Why?  
  
There is something coming and the spirits sense it betwixt tears and Widris readies her staffs and brews her potions and maps what she can of the world beyond the Fade and knows that come what may, she is more.


	18. Kirkwall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merrill gets a tip from Samson on where to look for the missing Alienage kids.

There are children going missing from the Alienage and the guards aren’t looking into it. Merrill joins the search parties, roving around the city. When the party decides to leave Darktown before night falls, Merrill chooses to stay, and stops by Anders’ clinic. If anyone has seen some panicked elvhen children, he, or at least his patients, would know.  
  
Anders is treating a shabby-looking man for lyrium withdrawal when she enters. He’s holding him by the shoulder and helping him sip a diluted lyrium potion. The man is covered in vomit and the room stinks. Anders does not seem to notice.  
  
“Next time you’re feeling the shakes, come here,” he is saying. “How long were you lying in the docks before Maddox found you? You could’ve easily fallen in. It’s safer to use with people, Samson. You know this. You don’t need me telling this. Especially with the Carta about.”  
  
“N’darken _your_ doorstep,” the man slurs. Merrill draws closer: it is that hopeless former Templar Hawke worked with, who thought he was helping mages when Tevinter slavers were actually taking them. What an awful life this man led: the type of awful that may have him knowing something about where the children were.  
  
“Hello,” she announces. Anders ignores her and continues to help keep Samson upright. His eyes flash blue briefly: he’s angry again, then, if Justice is peeking through. But Anders is always angry. Justice is always raring to go. She tries again, “It stinks quite awfully in here. Did you get sick?”  
  
Samson peels open an eye. “Ugh. Fuckin’ Dalish. Not n’other one. Least this one’s not shiny.”  
  
“That one wasn’t Dalish.” Anders sounds amused. “He isn’t the one who beat you up, was he? Hawke should’ve told him you were one of ours.”  
  
“N’stoolie,” Samson protests. “G’na be sick again.” He retches and Anders’ face hardens as he rubs his back. He is angry again but this time Justice is not leaking through: which means he has settled upon a course of action. That bodes badly.  
  
Merrill ventures again, “Oh, that’s quite a lot of vomit.”  
  
Anders glares at her. “Are you here to be inane, or do you want to make yourself useful? Get a towel and help me clean him up.” So she does. She makes herself useful. Working with Anders is like working with Master Ilen or one of the other hahren, who always had so little patience for her and her questions. They clean Samson up and Anders has her ladling out soup and keeping an eye on tensions in the waiting room while he sits with the ex-templar and helps him through the shock of a fix after too long without. It’s depressing, seeing the pinched, hungry faces, and Merrill wonders how Anders can stand it, especially with Justice in him. She supposes that is how he stands it, by helping them. Some spirits like to act.  
  
Eventually everyone is fed, people are clothed, and what medicine is left is given to those who need it. Anders gestures at her to join him in the back. Samson is sleeping in the cot, a rough blanket tossed over him.  
  
Without further ado, Merrill says, “There’s children going missing from the Alienage.”  
  
Anders closes his eyes. He looks haggard. “You know, when I first moved here, I’d try to help look. But you get tired of hitting dead ends and not being able to do anything about it. And Justice couldn’t--I can’t help with this, Merrill. I can’t know about this. Not unless you have a plan.”  
  
Merrill pauses. “Well, I was hoping you’d have one. So there’s that.”  
  
There was a grunt from the cot, and then Samson throws his blanket over. He stares at her unsteadily. “You won’t hear anything, but your friend might. The one that’s slumming it, the noble smuggler with the smudge on her nose. There’s a very rich boy who used to buy dust to get the demons out of his head, but it didn’t work. No demons. Never got in trouble with the guards cuz of his father, safe to drink with. Dad’s name starts with a V-something. Posh. Not Ferelden. You’re on the wrong path if you’re asking around Darktown, elf. Always look up when there’s that many kids gone.”


	19. The Black City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fragments of Mythal plot.

The remnants of Mythal pull towards her lost children, trapped in the frescoes her own Pride painted, plastered on the Titan-glass of each mirror-gate of the Black City. Flemeth is Flemeth but she is also Mythal in Mythal’s city and where once she resided, resplendent, Mythal rules again the fragile body of her favorite shadow. Hair to horns, teeth pointed, ears stretch, the body twists in the memories of the Fade and Mythal walks again, her shadow still the human who carries her. Her throne is empty. That is a fact that is not mutable.  
  
Five frescoes are ruined: herself and her children, her husband. One thing her Pride could not take away was the sting of the first betrayal, when Elgar’nan’s eye wandered, when her children asked for too much. She presses a hand to Andruil’s mad depiction, and can hear her dead whispers. They sleep, still dreaming dully, but they do not know what they have suffered, what the world has suffered, how she has suffered. Of course, she smiles grimly, it is not like they would have asked. Only Pride did, and only because she made him that way: her Pride, the best of her empire, fallen at last.  
  
“Banal’nadas,” he says, and those words echo through the Fade, even past the gates of the Black City, where the remnants of Mythal fester and the ruined Titan’s heart pulsates a sick red blood that should never have harvested, and her children, the mindless spawn, scrabble through the stone to find the last of the gods to gain the key to her city. The Titan calls and its song is the story of her own fall, the indulgence of her own reckless Pride. Arlathan: _this place I love_ in the old tongue, and so her heart’s trap.


	20. Halla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghilan'nain bioengineers the halla from elf and elk.

Elegance is ever-elusive, but there is a clear beauty in the relationship of elk and elf. Ghilan’nain knows it will not be difficult for her to catch it. Few things are. She promised her hunter a gift, and he promised her a place at court. This is a pleasant price to pay. Commissions imply value, and she is pricing out her worth.  
  
Ghilan’nain enjoys welding flesh to flesh. The arulin’holm is such a wonderful tool, and it requires such little blood, such little spark of harnessed lightning to open the flesh up to the possibilities. Elk bound faster than elvhen, but the elvhen see both farther and further. The skin of the People is soft to the touch but, toughened slightly, makes a very smooth hide. And every man can be broken. Every person has their price.  
  
Her people submit because that is required of them. Her people submit to the knife and the needle and the lightning rod because while elegance is elusive, they will only find it through her ministrations through tender flesh. She has their consent. They would never think otherwise. Her hunter does not question their adoration, because Pride breathes his own worship, it is only natural. Ghilan’nain splices elf and elk and makes the most beautiful of her children, the natural extension of the People: broken, remodelled, given form. Halla-mother, they call her, when he presents her to Mythal, and the All-Mother’s eyes glitter because she is brokering a marriage as well as godhood, and she is pleased by the memorials that are established for those who went before the knife, so she could create the halla, the most beautiful of the Elves. When Andruil demands her tribute, they are the only beasts she does not allow her to hunt, because they are her People, who gave her their flesh to mold.   
  
Even Andruil understands this: elegance can elude her, but not at the tip of the knife. 


	21. Haven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haven breaks Leliana's faith.

Found and foundered in the Maker’s breath, Leliana had nothing to sing. The great fact of Andraste was gone. The Temple of Sacred Ashes had been obliterated. The ruins that remain were interrupted by outbursts of feverish whispering red lyrium and corpses that still have not cooled enough to be removed. There was nothing living left.  
  
When the Wardens brought her to Haven, Leliana felt the ecstasy of faith return. She was there. No matter her doubt in the Maker’s vision, Andraste had been. She had died for them, the people of her future: the poor, the downtrodden, masters and slaves and mages alike. She had worked to bring the world closer to the song of the Maker. She had been glad to return at Justinia’s behest. She had been eager to pay homage. In the wake of the chaos of war, and the certainty she had of the mages losing their due, she needed the fact of Andraste to guide her.  
  
Now that was gone. The temple was gone. Justinia was gone. The village was named Haven. To it refugees flocked and they did not have provisions for them. No one had provisioned for this. No one could envision such a disaster: but here she was, masterless, standing in the snow, staring up at the Breach. Through that gash was the Maker’s ruined city, and it was empty. How was she to convince Him to return?  
  
Ashes fell from the Breach mixed with Haven’s perpetual snow, and Leliana shivered, because winter was coming and so was the end of her world, because the Maker had not come, Andraste was gone, and left to mourn the Divine was her, the least of her followers, a knife in the dark, and as night fell Leliana wondered if this was it, if Haven would break her where it had made her before. Because there was no end to this green light.


	22. Crow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mahariel reminds Zevran he has options.

The life of an assassin is not romantic. Tortue and death-for-hire a charming person does not make. Zevran tells Mahariel, “You must understand...I have no choice.”   
  
She says, “Had.” He is silent. It is odd that the Blight gives him options besides death. There is always the likely threat of becoming darkspawn, of course, but Mahariel wants him alive, and he has learned these past few months that Mahariel gets what she wants. She is worse than Teia and Bolivar both. Bolivar understood his security was built on a foundation as sandy as his family’s business, and Teia masked a desperate rage behind each kill. Arana Mahariel just does, and she does not look back.   
  
“I don’t understand,” Zevran says. “What are you telling me?”   
  
Mahariel looks at him squarely. She is a powerfully-built woman, taller than him and tougher too. She does not chatter to keep people away and the night at bay, she does not drink, and when she fucks, she is totally absorbed within their pleasure. He confesses he disassociates often--so easy, to think of it as a task one must do, even when you enjoy the person. Mahariel says, “You think you still have no choice? To go back to the Crows? To stay their--tool?”   
  
Zevran smiles sadly. “I am the knife in the dark.”   
  
“Not to me.” His heart stops: what, Mahariel, is this tenderness. Mahariel continues, “You didn’t kill me.”   
  
“Not for lack of trying,” he protests. He does have some professional pride, distasteful as the job may be. “Though--what are you offering me?” He is afraid to say: do you want me to stay.   
  
Mahariel says, “Options. You have options. It’d be wrong for me to decide them for you. But you’re Dalish, you know. You could look for your clan. Mine might be able to help. If we survive this, the Arlathvhen is in two years. We can go.”   
  
“We?” Zevran says. “And what will we do in those two years between, if we survive this?”   
  
Mahariel reaches for him. “What you’re good at.” She kisses him firmly, but he is laughing, because that is a sorry attempt at flattery, and Arana is smiling now too. If he survives this, perhaps in two years he will go to the Arlathvhen. Perhaps he will return to the Crows. He has choices, now: options, and Mahariel will let him decide his own fate for him.


	23. Thaig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a six word horror story

The walls bleed red like people.


	24. Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> King Alistair wants to talk. Solas does not.

The elves are sacrificing a hind under the sapling they planted in the courtyard of Tarasyl’an Telas. Their Second is leading the song, Coran of Clan Boranehn. Though half are from the Edgehall alienage, they all know the song. Some are weeping. Imladris told him that they lost a fourth of the People, first from the arl’s attack, and then from the journey to Skyhall. Solas cannot understand the words, but he watches from the edge of the crowd. Many of the elvish servants and some soldiers join in.   
  
A powerfully-built man with tapered ears joins him. Solas is surprised. It is the king of Ferelden, in plain clothes.    
  
“You’re the Inquisition’s elvhen history expert, right?” Alistair asks. “Don’t you know the words?”   
  
“No,” he says. “I don’t know this dialect.” It isn’t real, he thinks, it isn’t Elvhen, it is some corruption one thousand years after the fall of the People, when his lieutenants failed to rally the People together and they all fell in this catastrophe. He is living beyond the end of the world, and the language is grating. The mourning is grating. They do not even know what they have lost.   
  
Alistair is infernally good-natured. “Ah, not Ferelden, are you?” The king sighs. “I’d like to join, you know, but, with the Chantry what it is--my mother’s there, at least. It’s a little too elvhen nationalist for the king to sing. But it goes something like this,” he begins to singsong, badly, “ the people, Mother, the people, they slaughter the deer...poor me, I will live far from here, but our day, Mother, our day, the People’s day, our day, spring is rising…” Solas raises an eyebrow, and Alistair smiles bashfully. “It’s much prettier in Dalish. I don’t know a single elf in Ferelden who doesn’t know this song. Except you, I suppose. Very old folk song. The Chantry doesn’t like it because it’s about the Halla Mother, but,” he shrugs his shoulders, “you can’t keep us out of the Chantry and expect us to worship your god, you know?”   
  
“A rather open-minded attitude for the sovereign of Ferelden to hold,” Solas comments. He has been the counsellor of kings before. He has little interest in maneuvering Ferelden through a religious reformation. Who has the time? The Blight is here. He shifts, hoping Alistair will leave. He should not have left the rotunda.   
  
Alistair laughs a little, uncomfortable. “I’m not a king right now. Here, I’m an elf, a former servant of Arl Eamon, mourning the purging of Edgehall.”    
  
“You may have the ears of the People,” Solas says sententiously, “but that does not mean you have the soul.” He thinks to himself: you’re beginning to sound like your own father, graybeard, and that was a pedantic thing to tell a petty king, but why should I humble myself before a shadow? I have been humbled enough. I am here. I will not let the People lose its definition. We are more than a pair of pointed ears, and unending public grief.   
  
“Ugh, you’re one of  _ those _ ,” Alistair says. “And you’re not even Dalish.” He shakes his head and walks into the crowd, putting an arm around Fiona. Solas watches the elves mourn and feels his skin crawl with his own pettiness. They are empty, dreamless, fleeting, aping rituals their ancestors long forgot. They are less real than the certainty of Skyhold, sharp and sturdy regardless of the Veil. They might breathe, they might sing, they even pull at the Veil like a child clinging to their parent’s robes, but they cannot cause the land to bleed with their grief. They cannot sing spring into rebirth and set the seasons right. What the People are has been lost. These little folk songs will not restore it. Solas turns around, thinking: there is much to do, so little time. But it cannot be lost. It will not end with me. It cannot be lost. 


	25. Lover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I listened to "Wedding Song" from Hadestown on repeat and tried to rework the themes for the Blight. 70% it fits the meter--listen, I'm a poet, not a musician.

Lover tell me, since you can,  
Who will write the wedding-banns,  
The Blight is at our door:  
Death and getting deadlier.  
  
Lover I tell you, since I can,  
The taint will be the end of this:  
And I don’t care to think of this,  
Joy we’ll snatch from the archdemon’s maw,  
Its skull a wedding-table.  
  
Lover, tell me, since you can,  
What poison will lay at the table,  
A marriage at the end of it all,  
Death and getting deadlier.  
  
Lover when I raise my sword  
Spirits all will come along,  
Flocking to the end, Justice and Joy,  
Valour and Love and of course  
Compassion for those able,  
The Blight at the wedding-table.  
  
Lover tell me, when we’re dead,  
Who will set the marriagebed,  
Earth piled on earth.  
Death and getting deadlier.  
  
Lover, when I raise my sword,  
Earth will crack and walls will crumble,  
Wrecked from their rest they will come for me,  
And I will lay the demon at their feet  
And embrace the end of this story.  
These words will be our wedding bed.


	26. Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric reacts to Corypheus' dragon.

“All this shit is weird,” I grumbled. Sealing the Breach, as the Seeker put it, was too anticlimactic. Now, I had seen some weird shit in Kirkwall. We had a dragon, we even had a dragon-lady hang out at the Sundermount for awhile, though I’d minimized all that drama for the book. Too unbelievable. Reality is stranger than fiction. But this took the cake. The first time we fought Corypheus, I told Hawke that if he pulls a dragon out of his ass I was out. Now there was a mountain between me and the dragon, and the elf wanted to cause an avalanche.   
  
“Sure, why not?” I muttered. “We’re going to die anyway, may as well be  _ heroes _ about it.”   
  
The other elf, the bald one, was tense. “This should not be possible.” I agreed. Archdemons shouldn’t be possible. None of the old stories about the Blight made any sense, and even the Shaperate had nothing productive to say about it. But here we were, in the sequel to someone else’s legend, and I had no intention of ending up a footnote.   
  
I hoisted Bianca as the leader of us all, the woman with the glowing hand, charged forward. “Keep them off her!” I yelled. I wasn’t one for heroic speeches, but this was my moment. “Fuck this shit!” Cassandra suddenly appeared before, shield taking out an arrow headed straight for my eye. I winced. She was never going to let me live that down. If I survived, that wasn’t going in the book.   
  
Cassandra kept the footsoldiers off her as much as possible while Solas and I picked them off from behind. Solas was pretty pale, and his skin glittered weirdly in the lightning he summoned. Dude looked like a corpse, but I wasn’t going to let them make him a corpse. “Watch out, Chuckles,” I ordered, as one good shot from Bianca clove two of those weird lyrium-templars in two and shattered them like ice. “Huh.” That wasn’t supposed to happen. Only lyrium broke like that. Well, shit: the darkspawn had turned them into red lyrium, like the Knight-Commander. Somehow I had a sinking feeling this was my fault--but how could anyone have found the thaig? I needed to talk to Hawke. If I survived this, I needed to see Hawke.   
  
“Go now!” our leader yelled suddenly. The dragon was coming about for another pass. “Get to the others, they need you for cover.” I hesitated. I liked her. She was a bit gloomy, and needed to lighten up a little, and her politics were a little crazy, but every mage and every elf and every Dalish I’ve ever met was a little crazy, so in a way, it was a little familiar. Solas, though, who I suspected was a little in love with her, grabbed me and pushed me forward.   
  
“Let’s go,” he said. “We need to evacuate the civilians. This is her fight now.”   
  
Cassandra cleared a path as we left her behind, and I chanced a glance behind my shoulder to see her standing before an Archdemon and a darkspawn magister straight out of the Chant, and I thought, well, shit. If this is just the beginning, I have no clue if the end’s in sight.


	27. Elfroot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Witty Ritts and Scout Harding smoke a blunt and wonder what the fuck the Inquisitor is doing.

“Do you think she’s smoking it?”Witty Ritts asks idly. Scout Harding watches the Inquisitor range up the cliff face to get to a single crop of elfroot sticking out of the rock face. “Because I can’t think of any other reason why she goes through it so far. Like. This is constant.” She draws in the smoke from the slug Harding wrapped and inhales deeply: this is the good stuff, the stuff the Requisitions Officer tries to move from camp as quickly as possible. Too bad, they need some fun. She passes it on.   
  
Scout Harding, who has actually held conservations with the illustrious Inquisitor, disagrees. “Nah. She’s way too serious for that. Though I think she makes it into a salve for her scars. Maybe the bald one? Solas? He strikes me as the type.” She takes a hit and coughs, a little embarrassed.    
  
Witty Ritts scoffs. “No way, he’s way too focused for that. I mean, we’ve all heard him go on about the weird shit he sees in the Fade, but that takes more serious shit than just royal elfroot.” They watch the Inquisitor nearly lose her grip and swear as she hangs by a single hand to the rockface. The Herald of Andraste would rather scale a sheer cliff than move around it. She’s also not the most careful of climbers.   
  
“We should do something,” Scout Harding says finally, watching the Inquisitor dangle.   
  
“Like what?”   
  
“Spot her?” Scout Harding minds catching her: but the Inquisitor is in rather heavy armor made of woven silverite and halla leather. She’s also very shiny. “I guess we could get a mage.”   
  
The Inquisitor heaves herself up and scrambles to the face of the cliff, grabbing at the elfroot as she slides. It comes loose and she falls rather dramatically onto the heath.   
  
“Oh fuck,” Witty Ritts says. “She dead?”   
  
There is a shimmer and a glimmer and a quiver, and the Inquisitor downs two health potions and gets right to her feet, looking affronted. She staggers off to the distance, where her companions are stuck arguing over a map, plant still in hand, scattering soil down the path.   
  
“Oh,” Scout Harding enunciates. “That’s why. All the elfroot. Else she’ll die.”


	28. Companion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas and Blackwall rescue Lavellan. (my take on the companions rescuing the player character quest)

“Solas.” He turns around to see Blackwall, uncomfortable in his Halamshiral dress uniform. He had kept himself apart, clearly ill at ease. Solas, though, had been enjoying the show. It was all such lovely pageantry, and Imladris thought him quite dashing in the uniform, though she immediately vetoed the hat. To her horror, he had brought it anyway. The more he played himself as strange and exotic, the more the court projected their own character on him--and he was left to be himself, enjoying the Inquisitor in all her stark finery.   
  
“May I help you?” He was smiling, he could not help himself. The woman who kept his glass fill was a friend of Imladris’ mother-in-law. He was amused and pleased and impressed she had already seeded the Orlesian court with as many of her people as she could, even before her enthronement. She was a remarkable woman. Solas looked past Blackwall to watch her charm a Dowager Countess with connections to the Council of Heralds. When was the last time a countess spoke humbly to an elf, and a mage at that?   
  
“You’re enjoying yourself,” Blackwall said curiously. Solas’ eyes floated back to him.   
  
“I do adore the heady blend of power, intrigue, danger, and sex that permeates these events,” he purred. He had perhaps drunk more than he thought. “And the Inquisition at the center of it all...it has been long since I was last at court.”   
  
Blackwall stared at him blankly.“Right then. Weird thing to be turned on by, but okay.” Solas laughed. He had drunk more than he thought.   
  
“I assure you, I have no designs on the Inquisitor’s time,” he said drily. “Not until the ball is over, perhaps. But do you need something?”   
  
Blackwall said, “Er, well. I think we should have designs on her time. She’s been stuck talking to that countess for twenty minutes now, and Josephine says it’s too long. That we need to get her to move on. So, help.”   
  
Solas raised an eyebrow. “You cannot ask Vivienne, she is too much of an opportunist and is playing her own Game tonight. So you come to me, the elvhen apostate. Well, Warden-Constable. What sort of distraction shall we create?”   
  
He ended up having Cullen compare notes on walnut farming with the countess while Blackwall asked the Inquisitor to dance--and was turned down, because while the Inquisition had allied with the Wardens (against his advice, but Imladris was stubborn as a wolf) it would not do to favor such a disgraced body in the eyes of the court. Instead, Imladris floated to the Fumeur, and won the favor of yet another young and eager nobleman, and when the sordid business was all finally done, Celene buried and the elves celebrating riotously in Halamshiral, she thanked him profusely for rescuing her from such a dull conversation, against two different walls.


	29. Hero of Ferelden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arana Mahariel realizes there is no life after the Blight. Yes, she's sleeping with Zevran, Leliana, and Alistair. You can't make me choose!

Arana had faced the Blight and survived. Now the problem was living afterward. Zevran recommended they travel. Leliana invited her to Orlais. Velanna said she could find her clan, but that she could never go home again. Velanna, as usual, was right, though she overheard Sigrun scolding her afterward. She brooded in her magnificent bedroom in the Keep, curled up by the fire. She missed Zevran, she missed Leliana, she missed Alistair, but they were all so far away, living past the Blight.   
  
In two weeks Zevran would return and they would have to make plans. Initially she had wanted to stay by Alistair’s side, to help keep him steady as Anora transitioned the monarchy to him, but that was impossible. He was already half-elf and a bastard and a mage’s bastard at that. He could not have both of his elvhen lovers creeping about the palace, even though Anora seemed relieved he did not want any sort of consummation. Denerim had its heir--Morrigan’s child, wherever she might be. But still, the bannorn would look at her and Zevran, and whisper.    
  
It would have been easier if Leliana would come to court, but she wanted to return to the Chantry. With Marjolane gone, Leliana had only the ghosts left, and Justinia seemed the only person who could banish them. Arana did not count. Those long nights holding her, the tearful whispers, Leliana’s own declaration of love--none of it counted. The Maker had a higher destiny for those two loves.   
  
At least Zevran was constant. He had business to settle with the Crows, of course, and needed to return to Antiva. She had worried about him leaving without her, but she needed to clear up Amaranthine, and he promised to come home. The question, of course, was where home was. Velanna said--nowhere. They were the wandering Dalish, the last of the Elvhen, and their home was the stories they mined from the Fade. Zevran said home was in each other, but that was hard to feel when she was left alone.    
  
Amaranthine was beautiful, of course, and prosperous, and the people liked her, even though she was an elf. She could very well make a home here, and Zevran would stay, and Leliana would visit, and it would be a boon to the stability of Alistair’s reign, to have such a staunch ally in the Bannorn. But still, she wondered. Could this Keep become a home?   
  
The Blight would take it all away regardless. The Blight had taken her home, and soon it would claim her. Despite the fire, Arana shivered. The taint was in her blood, and not even Morrigan could stop it. There was no living after the Blight. She would not survive it. She might have brought down the Archdemon, but she could not kill a sickness in her own blood. With thoughts like that haunting her, Arana hoped that someone, anyone of them, would come home to her soon. She did not think she could survive this alone.


	30. Champion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke takes on the Seven Sisters, western-style.

Hawke rolled into Kirkwall like a hot wind finally disturbing the dust and ash of Lowtown, and strolled those empty streets with their hand on their dagger. People peeked through shuttered windows. This newcomer meant business, it was clear. The Seven Sisters had caused chaos in the lower depths of Kirkwall for years, and the Champion was determined to change it.   
  
Hawke walked into the Hanged Man and let the door slam shut. The bartender Corff began polishing his glass, studiously looking away as the patrons tensed. Hawke was looking for a fight, and everyone knew it. They leaned over the bar and gestured to Corff for their usual. Corff took his time, avoiding eye contact, as the favorite patron Varric sidled over. Varric slid a couple coins onto the counter and gestured for him to leave them alone. Drinks in hand, he led Hawke to a secluded corner.   
  
“I heard you got trouble,” Varric said. “The whole city’s saying you challenged two Carta factions to a fight, and people with coin are betting that they’ll run you out of town.”   
  
“Money never bought sense,” Hawke quipped, and took a long draught of their beer. “Good thing I’m poor. Another one, Norah.” Norah made a disgusted sound but got them their drink. Once she was out of hearing, Hawke leaned forward. “I’m taking on the Sisters, tonight, at the Docks. You in?”   
  
Varric smiled. “Right behind you, Hawke.” He then pulled out Bianca and shot the offending assassin in the throat. Hawke did not even blink, but immediately whirled around and roundhouse-kicked the next of the Sisters. Daggers flashing, they began their dance of death. It had been a set-up from the start, but a set of Hawke’s own design. Patrons screamed and Corff ducked behind his own bar as bolts and daggers went flying. Blood painted the walls of Kirkwall’s finest dive. When the dust cleared, Hawke was still standing, breathing heavily, Varric at their side as always. They bent down and picked up the last of the Sisters, the only one left alive.   
  
“You tell your Carta manager I’m coming for him,” Hawke growled. “Got that, salroka? This is my town, and my bar. You’re not terrorizing any more elves and selling any more slaves while I’m around.” They picked up their dagger, Malcolm’s key, and carved a scar onto the gangster’s face. Hawke swiped at the blood with their thumb and painted a dash over their own nose. They grinned. “Now fuck off.” The gangster gasped and scrambled away. Hawke chuckled darkly as the Sister ran.   
  
“You think they’ll take the message?” Hawke asked. They walked over to the bar, where Corff was already recovering. The patrons were murmuring, but setting the tables and chairs back upright, and Norah was already bringing out a mop. Hawke gestured at Corff to bring out their usual, and leaned against the bar, watching the chaos right itself.   
  
Varric looked at the corpses strewn about the room. “Oh, I think they’ll get it. You wrote it in blood, after all, Champion of Kirkwall.”


	31. Inquisitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inquisitor Imladris Ashallin Lavellan, in her own words.

I am Imladris of Clan Lavellan, the halla woman’s daughter. I write this account for my daughters, who will grow old and raise their children, if they so choose to have children, without me. I write this with the understanding that this will not replace the role I should take in their lives, but with the hope that it will give them comfort as the earth begins its easily.   
  
I was born before the Fifth Blight to Baranduin of Clan Lavellan in the Wycombe Delta and Ashalla Hawen’s daughter, who had been raised in the lost Dales, what the Orlesians call the Exalted Plains. I was the second daughter and greeted the world two whole minutes after my brother Revas. My father Baranduin spoke Common, Sindar, and Dalish fluently, and worked an alliance with the various Rivaini and Antivan merchants travelling through our rivers. For this, he incurred the ire of the Duchy of Wycombe. My mother was Dalish, from the Dales, and cared for the halla. She was Second for the clan, and had willingly allowed Deshanna Istimaethorial to take her place. My mother had a temper that made her unfit for the peacekeeping necessary for guiding one of the largest settled clans in northern Thedas.   
  
We lived grounded, in the city whose name I share, in a forest laid twain by the river Baranduin. My father took me with him in his trading missions, as part of his aravel, and from him I learned my languages. When I was twelve, and reached the year of my magic, the templars stole my sister Halla’den from us, and brought her to the Kirkwall Circle. Keeper Adahlfenor forbade us from fighting, fearing escalation from the Wycome ruling family. That same year, the Duchess married Antoine of Jader, a favorite of the then-empress Celene of Orlais. With him came his prejudices. Landed Dalish was unthinkable, so he did the unthinkable. He ordered his chevaliers to cut down every elf marked as “Dalish.” Every member of Clan Lavellan with vallaslin perished over the course of that red week, but for Deshanna Istmaethorial and my older sister Ashara, who were visiting our cousins in the Dales.   
  
The children of Clan Lavellan scattered. Some went to the Wycombe alienage. Others spread across the Dalish clans of Rivain and Antiva. My sister Ashara, my brother Revas, and I went our father’s friends, a Rivaini couple named Paolo and Francesca. Their son Luis, also known as the Mouse, had a son by my sister named Samahl. They protected us as best they could through the repression that followed.   
  
When I came of age Deshanna Istimaethorial, who had been living hidden within the Wycombe alienage, approached and asked me if I would be willing to take the vallaslin. I chose to be branded with the All-Motherl’s promise of justice and vengeance mixed. My brother, who had been lingering amongst the dwarven workshops, took June’s. He married Olivine of House Cadash in a splendid ceremony, the first Dalish wedding performed since the Harrowing. Deshanna asked me to become her First and we travelled through the Free Marches searching for our scattered siblings. We led them back and established the Friendly Homes, towns in the ashes of the old, from before our lost parents. For this at the Arlathvhen the Keepers gave her the title Istimaethorial, or Sylaise, the Hearthkeeper and mother of us all.   
  
Clan Zathrian is prone to mythologizing and their First Lanaya said that we were the living embodiment of the story of the Slow Arrow. The Dalish have an old story, not too much different from how it was told in Arlathan, that a village once asked Fen’Harel for a favor. They were being hunted by an awful monster, they said, and they needed him to hunt it. The Dread Wolf agreed, but as always his promises were kept rather literally. He shot a single arrow into the sky and left. The monster--in our case, let us call it colonialism--returned and killed all the elders. When it had finally ripped the last to shreds, the arrow finally fell from the sky and killed the beast. It had let the elders die but spared the children. In that way, Lanaya said, we must not be beholden to the old ways and let tradition kill us. We needed to adapt. And I said we needed to fight back.   
  
That Arlathvhen Briala of Halamshiral approached the Keepers with a proposal. Her Empress had won a bet, allowing an elvhen student to each department of the University of Orlais. Briala wanted the Dalish to be represented. I was selected, because of my languages, and because of my magic. I would never be unarmed, and I could always defend myself--though I was told I needed to hide it as best as I could. I moved to the alienage of Val Royeaux, under the roof of Manon, a labor organizer, and found myself a job at a local bakery. The night before my first day of class, a man came falling through my roof. I was too shocked to be angry at the plaster covering my bed. He scrambled up, drew himself to his full height, and told me, “I suppose you’ll be wanting a discount on the rent.” His name was Mahanon, and he was a student of music, also covered under Celene’s bet. He had been experimenting with acids to melt the face of the lions of Valmont flanking the alienage, and the recipe proved too strong. We soon refined it.   
  
In our third year Mahanon and I decided to liberate the coronation stole of the old Dalish kingdom, the Dirthaveren, from the University of Orlais. We would have gotten away with it if we hadn’t decided to write a song about it. We spent six months in prison, were promptly expelled from the university, and were encouraged to leave as quickly as possible. I went home to Wycombe, and Mahanon followed me. Our daughter Mathalin followed soon after, and Mirwen six years after that.   
  
We devoted ourselves to creating a united front of elves and apostates and mages across the Free Marches, and founded an organization named Fen’Harel’s Teeth, after an entirely apocryphal story (so I am told) about one of the ways the Dread Wolf’s followers would torture the opposition. We rallied our communities to demand our land back, a safe and respected place to worship, schools of our own, and absolutely no taxation without representation. In Kirkwall, Ostwick, and Wycombe, we helped lead a dockworker’s strike. When the Blight struck, Clan Lavellan opened its Homes to Ferelden refugees, and we hunted the slavers back. My brother was taken, and we tracked him all the way to Minrathous, where his bond Olivine gambled and won him back. There was never any doubt. The dice were loaded.    
  
When we returned to Wycombe, we made one fatal mistake, and took rooms at an inn that owed money to the Carta. The Duke’s men broke in and seized us. They killed my husband. I escaped prison with the help of a Chantry sister named Lucie. Three years later the Dalish decided to send me to the Divine Justinia II’s conclave to end the Mage-Templar War. I was to petition her to release all Dalish captives immediately to my custody, for them to be repatriated. We did not expect her to even consider the request, but a symbolic attempt at reform was deemed necessary. Instead of political maneuvering, I was caught in the blast as the darkspawn magister Corypheus unlocked one of the last surviving foci of the Evanuris, and the rest is history that you already know.


End file.
